TIME FOR 28?

In the summer of 1787, representatives of twelve of our thirteen states met in Philadelphia to revise the failing Articles of Confederation. Only a few years after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, it was becoming obvious that the loose confederation of independent states, created by the Second Continental Congress, could not guarantee the national sovereignty that the Founding Fathers had envisioned. Thirteen sovereign states could not agree on most of the important issues that in other countries were decided and resolved by a national government. In the critical areas of business and trade policy along with national defense, there was no consensus. From road building to the creation of a standardized currency, the states' on-going refusal to compromise, created the real risk of a failed nation-state. It was only after the Virginia militia was called out by George Washington to come to the aid of Massachusetts, during Shays's Rebellion, that twelve of the states finally and reluctantly agreed to send delegates to a convention to revise the failing Articles.

What emerged, to the chagrin of the vehemently states' rights crowd, was a brand new blueprint for governing the United States, the US Constitution. Gone was the absolute sovereignty of the states, replaced by a significantly stronger and ultimately supremely sovereign national government. The states retained only nominal independence under the new plan, but they were promised a more stable national economy, uniformity in interstate commerce, and a more robust system of national defense. For the next two years after the document was signed by the delegates and forwarded to the thirteen states for ratification, parties lined up for and against the new Constitution. The debate was quite spirited, especially in the key state of New York, but with the journalistic help of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, ratification was completed in 1789 and the United States of America was at last a political reality.

It did not take long, however, for critics of the new national government's power to point out some glaring defects within the Constitution. Although it indirectly referred to the rights of individual citizens, there were few clear statements guaranteeing them. The so-called father of the Constitution, James Madison, with the not-insignificant prodding of his Virginia neighbor and life-long friend, Thomas Jefferson, proposed a number of amendments be added to the document.

During the ratification process, two distinct quasi-parties emerged within the debate. Those who favored ratification called themselves Federalists, while those opposing ratification were called Anti-Federalists. Among the Anti-Federalist camp were some key Revolutionary War figures like Patrick Henry, George Mason, and of course, Jefferson. James Madison, realizing that ratification of the new Constitution was doomed without moderate Anti-Federalist support, came up with a plan. Using the English Bill of Rights and Enlightenment ideas already incorporated into a number of state constitutions, Madison offered them up collectively as a Bill of Rights, which was to be added to the Constitution, shortly after ratification.

As important as these rights came to be, it must be said that the process for incorporating them into the Constitution was equally significant. During the Philadelphia Convention, while those gifted delegates debated the mechanisms and procedures of the government they were creating, they were humble enough to also create a vehicle for later changing the document. Article V, which details the process for amending the Constitution, is a testament to the real genius of the Framers. For as marvelously flexible as our constitution may be, Madison and his colleagues realized that the future of their new republic, might hold challenges and opportunities unimaginable in 1787. Without Article V, an entirely new constitution would have had to be written and ratified to end slavery, directly elect senators, extend voting rights to ex-slaves and women, enact, then repeal prohibition, limit presidential terms, and to enfranchise those eighteen year old voters. But with this ingenious method for repair and improvement already built in, we have a two hundred twenty year old Constitution that works as well in the twenty-first century as it did in the eighteenth.

That said, it may be time to once again dust off Article V and add another amendment. Over the past three centuries, the US Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. The vast majority of those "fixes" have been to expand the rights and freedoms of American citizens. A few have been enacted to streamline or adjust the process of governing, and even fewer have been adopted to increase the power of the central government. What I am proposing falls, I fervently believe, within the most numerous category.

Prior to the invention of electronic mass media, particularly television, the cost of running for office was not prohibitively expensive. That all changed in the 1950s. President Eisenhower was the first national candidate to buy commercial time on national television to promote his 1952 candidacy for the presidency and he won in a landslide over his Democratic challenger, Adlai Stevenson. From then on, every presidential candidate, and now, every candidate running for any national, state, and even local office spends the bulk of his or her campaign money on media buys. In 2008, President Obama raised and spent over eight hundred million dollars to win a job that pays four hundred thousand dollars per year. John McCain, raised and spent a little under seven hundred million in a losing effort. In my state, financially bankrupt California, it costs over twenty million dollars to run for governor or for a seat in the US Senate, and between two and five million to campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives. Remember, a House seat must be contested every two years, so another two to five million must be found again and again.

So what, you might ask? As I see it there are some serious problems with this system. First, people of moderate income are all but eliminated as potential candidates. Without the ability to raise significant sums of cash to pay for TV and radio spots, it is next to impossible to run, let alone get elected. All one has to do is take a look at who serves in these offices and one can make a pretty good argument that today we may have more of an economically-elite aristocracy governing our country, rather than a representative democracy. Do any of us really believe that the members of Congress really feel the pain of this recession the way the rest of us do? Are any of them in danger of being denied health care if they are voted out of office? As I write this commentary, we are putting our hopes for major governmental reform in the hands of people who are a great deal more comfortable at a country club cocktail party, than they would be sharing a pizza with us at Round Table.

Secondly, and this is much more important than the first problem, is who is actually paying for these ridiculously expensive election campaigns? Even the rich guys who run for office prefer to fund-raise, rather than spend their own money. In 2004 both George W Bush and John Kerry raised record sums in their presidential campaigns, and they are both the products of abundant family wealth. And where, you might ask, does all that Contributed money come from? That's right, it comes from big corporations, institutions, trade-unions, lobbyists, and other economically fat interest groups that these politicians are supposed to be regulating. Beginning in 1995, the House of Representatives adopted a rule allowing for a three day legislative work week, so that the other two days could be used doing the real work of Congress. . . raising money. By the way, it is often at the above-mentioned cocktail parties where much of this campaign money changes hands. By the way, none of those wealthy power brokers eat at Round Table either.

Under Article One of the Constitution, the Congress was given three primary tasks. First and foremost legislators were mandated to make law. Secondly they were given the power to check the power of the other branches of government, and finally, they were assigned the tasks of regulation and oversight. The Framers were quite clear about who members of Congress were supposed to work for. Since 1789, the members of the House have worked directly for the electorate within their respective districts. The Senators, originally the employees of state legislatures, became directly accountable to the people with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. At least that is the theory.

Back in 1788, James Madison writing in Federalist #10, warned the American people of the dangers of "factions" within a democracy. Factions, he said, are organized groups of people who want to influence political power in order to promote their own private interests, rather than support what might be in the interest of the greater good. Hmmm. Remarkably, Madison wrote all that, way before the advent of American political parties, lobbyists, and TV commercials. He believed that as long as we all lived under a political system where no single faction (interest group) could disproportionately influence political outcomes, our democracy would flourish. Then came the money boys.

Let me cite a particular example to make my point. The first American presidential candidate to suggest that we adopt a national health care program to cover all Americans was Teddy Roosevelt in the campaign of 1912. Yeah, 1912. And yes, it was that Teddy, the one carved into Mount Rushmore. Then it was Harry Truman in 1948, Lyndon Johnson in 1965, Richard Nixon in 1974, Jimmy Carter in 1976, ted Kennedy in 1980, Bill Clinton in 1993, and now Barack Obama in 2009. And at every juncture, the financial powers, collectively called the "Health Care Industry," spent huge sums of money to defeat the proposals. Even now, when over seventy percent of Americans want a national health care plan, the monied interests are putting up a tremendous fight to block its passage. But how can they win, when we citizens have the vote? Come on, connect the dots, or should I say, connect the dollar bills and you can answer this question yourself. Or, try this for fun: pick up your phone and call your US Senator and ask to speak to her (California, remember). Trust me, you will not get through. But what if you are the president of the American Medical Association, or the chairman of Blue Cross, or the president of Catholic Health Care West, or the CEO of a major pharmaceutical manufacturer? Do you think those guys will be passed-off to a twenty one year old college intern? Once again, the cocktail party trumps pizza night!

Every interest group out there has well-paid lobbyists who do nothing else but promote their particular agendas before our duly elected law makers. And our law makers listen because these are the very same people who pay the lion's share of their campaign expenses. The only way you and I are going to get our elected officials back on our side is to get rid of the money. And the only way to do that, now that the US Supreme Court has said that campaign money is the same thing as political speech, and therefore constitutionally protected, is to add a new amendment.

Imagine how radically different Washington would be if we, the people (now there is a catchy phrase), made it unconstitutional to use any private money to finance a campaign for the presidency, the US Senate, or the House of Representatives. Instead of cash, what if candidates were required get enough voter signatures on a state-wide or national petition to qualify for a spot on the ballot? Then, what if all candidates got the same amount of money to run their respective campaigns, drawn from a tax-payer funded pool and controlled by an independent election commission? What if election TV time was free, and as with campaign money, every candidate on the ballot got the same amount of time? What would our republic look like if our elected officials actually worked for us? How much could they get done if they no longer had to fund-raise? And what if lobbyists could only provide information about their particular interests, but no money could be privately donated for any reason?

My fellow American citizens, this may be the very reason that the most celebrated class of patriots included Article V in our most cherished document, the United States Constitution. Two hundred and twenty years later, we could make our political system work for us, just like Madison and his patriot-posse had in mind. Remember, in many ways political power is like the physical prowess we all took for granted in our misspent youth. We have to use it or we could lose it.

If Truth Be Told,How Can You Really Tell?

Sadly, as much as I despised the presidency of Dubya, in truth it is way to soon to evaluate his time in office, let alone his legacy. Like so many of my peers, my deepest criticisms of him lie in two areas. The first is policy and governance. During his eight years in office I was almost completely opposed to his major policy agendas. Further, I found myself diametrically opposed to everyone of his major presidential appointments. From his cabinet to the US Supreme Court, I was dismayed by his deeply partisan choices. Not because I am anti-partisan, on the contrary as a radically left of center Democrat, I could not be more partisan. No, I opposed his choices because they all had one thing in common. . . they stood for political philosophies and policy agendas that I revile.

The second reason I was fervently anti-Bush, was because of his personal style. Whether it was an act (which I do not believe) to rally the right-wing base of his party, or some rich kid's latent desire to actually connect with common American culture, I felt that his bumbling, aw shucks, and syntax destroying rhetorical style ended up dummying down the office of the presidency. I was certain that this Billy-Bob act was in no small part, significantly responsible for America's lost prestige on the world stage. While the Limbaugh crowd could not get enough of Dubya's bible-thumping one liners, I was sickened by the pride he took in simplifying the most complex issues to statements like, "Bring em on," or "I'm the Decider!"

But the historian in me kept nagging in a soft but persistent whisper. . . you cannot really know yet. In truth it takes many years, if not decades, in order to evaluate the contributions of any American president. Like it or not, one must separate contemporary public opinion from historic significance. For example, most Americans have been falling all over themselves in praise of the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Yet, we now know that the seeds for the economic meltdown we are experiencing were sown by his enthusiastic demand for de-regulation of our major financial institutions. Bush I got blasted by those policies in the Savings and Loan crises of the late 80s. Further, the Wall Street as we know it today, did not exist prior to the "Reagan Revolution." De-regulation greased the skids for the likes of AIG, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers to run amok in speculating away the wealth of our country, while commerical banks like Citi and Bank of America were freed-up to dive deep into mortgage speculation. In the years to come, historians may not be as kind to President Reagan, as were so many of his contemporaries who were captivated by his public persona.

Likewise, the "Camelot" of the Kennedy presidency, with its energetic charisma and the personal appeal of the man himself, may not withstand the rigors of historic analysis. Everyone knows about the botched Bay of Pigs invasion and the heroic Cuban Missile Crisis, but we forget that JFK could not move Congress on any of his progressive domestic agendas. Further, Kennedy was reluctant to speak out for Civil Rights, fearing that he would lose the Democratic South in the election of 1964. Now that we are almost fifty years beyond that November day in 1963, we are less blinded by the personal appeal of the man and more inclined to see him within the context of his policy decisions. Without a doubt, much of what JFK has been credited with in the area of Civil Rights, belongs to Lyndon Johnson and not to Kennedy's so-called "Best and Brightest" team.

And then there is Jimmy Carter. For years his presidency has been condemned and ridiculed by many of his contemporaries. Yet, almost all of his predictions about energy, health care, terrorism, Palestine and Israel, and the state of our economy have been proven out. What most of us remember is the uncomfortable style that emerged from the Carter White House, and the way we rejected his warnings about the future. What we wanted was the flag-waving optimism of Ronald Reagan instead. Even if those policies would eventually come back to haunt us. Carter's great flaw may have been his belief that the American people really wanted to hear the truth, no matter how painful it might be. Alas, it is only historians and some theologians who find satisfaction in the truth. The rest of us simply want to have our beliefs and life-decisions validated by our leaders, whether or not those beliefs and life choices have been correct.

So. . . what about George W Bush? All I can say is that I am glad he is gone, and I believe we will be spending many years paying for the damage his presidency caused. His reckless, my way or the highway style of governance, was at best a public relations nightmare and at worst a damaging blow to our country. I believe this deeply and from all that I have read and witnessed over the last decade, I am sure I am right. But then there is that darned voice again, and if I am going to be completely honest, I must confess. . . I really do not know and only time will tell. Damn!

Huh? Part Two

Let me lead off with my own criticism of the Obama stimulus package. No one should be surprised that the economy is still tanking. First, it is taking far too long for the 787 billion dollars of the Obama plan to enter the economy. By the most optimistic accounts, it will be well into 2011 before all the money has been injected into our sagging national economy. Secondly, it does not take a Nobel laureate to be able to figure out that an economy that has lost more than three trillion dollars in wealth, investments, and jobs, will not be resuscitated by a less than one trillion dollar stimulus. In order to make his plan bi-partisan, a stupid idea from the get go, Obama watered down his request and what he got was no where near enough to end this recession. Now, facing a much more timid Congress, the president is going to have to ask for a great deal more money, or run the risk of a decade long, Japanese style recession.

That said, one wonders why House and Senate Republicans are on the attack against the whole idea of a federal stimulus plan. First, it was their runaway love affair with a completely de-regulated national economy that got us into this mess in the first place. With a little help from Bill Clinton in 1995, these economic geniuses gutted all our banking regulation laws, enacted a shameful tax cut for the rich, cut the funding for the SEC, and took massive amounts of campaign funding from the likes of hedge fund managers, Wall Street investment bankers, and the mortgage securities industry. In other words, while worshiping at the altar of Alan Greenspan and Adam Smith, these stimulus nay-sayers gleefully rode our economy into the toilet.

And now what is their solution? Incredibly, it is more of the same that got us into this mess in the first place! Cut taxes, deregulate, and, I guess, to the poor, "let them eat cake." Sorry Marie, but I could not resist stealing your line. I guess these guys are really convinced that, like so many of their ardent supporters on the far right, none of the rest of us ever read American history. Just because they missed the lecture on the New Deal in History 101, it does not mean that the rest of us did. My God, even Ronald Reagan, patron saint of the born again right, admired FDR as a great president.

But that isn't the truly weird part. The real Twilight Zoney stuff being babbled into microphones these days is a Republican attempt to lay blame for the recession at the front door the Obama White House. Where were these guys when Dubya was celebrating the blessings of runaway capitalism. Did they miss the fact that their party took a two trillion dollar federal surplus in 2000 and magically turned it into a three trillion dollar federal deficit? Had they any of the decency they say us leftists are void of, rather than bemoaning the evils of federal spending, they would be supporting all attempts to repair the damage they have done.

Heck, even the Pope, not exactly known for his leftist thinking, issued an Encyclical entitled, Charity in Truth this last week in which he condemned western democracies for giving in to the powers of corporate greed. Benedict XVI then went on to admonish western political leaders to restructure their economies to create true welfare states where the poor and vulnerable would be cared for, while at the same time instituting new and stringent regulations on private capital.

Hey if the Vatican has finally figured this out, why can't all those members of the Flat Earth party in Congress? Or maybe they all missed that sermon last week at the Fox News Cathedral.

That Darned Comma!

As we approach the 4th of July, I thought it would be a good time to investigate the Holy Grail of the NRA, the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution. But first, so I do not come off as just another anti-gun extremist, I have no problem with hunters and their firearms. In fact, I am not sure I have any real problems with people who feel compelled to keep a firearm for home protection. That said, I do have a problem with the proliferation of semi-automatic assault weapons and their attending armor piercing ammunition. One can only wonder why so many citizens of the most powerful country in the world seem to be so paranoid about perceived enemies.

Since the election of Barrack Obama, gun manufacturers in the United States have enjoyed all time record sales. And the guns that are fueling these sales are not hunting rifles, bird hunting shot guns or even revolvers. Instead they are military-like lethal assault weapons, like AR 15s, AK 47s, machine pistols, and the ever popular street howitzer, the short barreled shot gun. In no other modern democracy can weapons like these be purchased by the general public. Not even in Israel can a citizen buy such a weapon, as they are exclusively reserved for members of the IDF (Israeli Defense Force).

So what gives? Avoiding if I may, the urge to discuss the psychological reasons for people who feel so threatened, or powerless, that they can only find solace in the cold caress of blue steel and rifled barrels, I would like to address the legality of armed America. Right now a number of states have eliminated or are about to eliminate most restrictions on citizens packing concealed weapons, and some like Tennessee and Arizona are allowing people to bring these guns into bars and nightclubs. Now there is a great idea. Do any of these mentally challenged legislators not see that the combination of twenty or thirty something males, soaking in testosterone, mixing alcohol, their libidos, and firearms is a guaranteed prescription for OK Corral-like mayhem? Are these spineless morons that afraid of the National Rifle Association?

The answer to the above question is an obvious and resounding "YES." Who knows where all this will end? Maybe we can all start buying Kevlar body armor for our kids and bullet proof glass for our cars. Care to wager on how soon we are going to see a rash of road rage shoot-outs on our freeways?

But, as so often happens. . . I digress. The real purpose of this piece on our most patriotic day, is to take a close look at the Second Amendment. I will address the gun-toting crazies another time. Every flag-waving, anthem-singing, firecracker-throwing, red-blooded and true blue American can at least paraphrase the second half of our most controversial constitutional amendment. But for the record, let us quote directly, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Pretty much sums things up right? Well, maybe not. It turns out that this oft quoted phrase doe not stand alone, indeed, it is a dependent clause supporting a much less famous grammatical subject. The entire amendment reads: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Huh?

It seems that the right to bear arms is conditional upon the necessity of the state to maintain a "well-regulated" militia, whatever that is. And why, might you ask is this "sacred' right conditional? Well, it turns out that we can find our answer in the rules of standard American English punctuation and grammar. Dead center in the Second Amendment is a comma. And as we all learned back in elementary school, a comma is used to separate dependent clauses in a sentence. Note the word "dependent." Had Jefferson, Madison, et al wanted to create an unconditional right to pack heat, they would have used a semi-colon, rather than a comma. For a semi-colon is used to separate independent clauses within the same sentence and the "keep and bear arms" segment would in fact be inviolate. But instead, the authors of the Bill of Rights chose to attach this conditional right to the necessity of a sovereign state to maintain a militia.

In the 1790s when this amendment was ratified, militias in every state were made up of bands of citizens, who would be called on in times of emergencies to act as soldiers in a temporary armies. Further, these militia-men were bound to bring their own weapons to the drilling field, as no state could afford to pay for the guns of the militiamen. Thus the need for a right to bear arms. But today, every state in the union has a more formal "well-regulated militia," called the National Guard. Thus, if we interpret the Constitution literally, as most political conservatives demand, the only people among us with a guaranteed right to possess firearms are members of our respective state's National Guard units. But unlike the late 18th century, today's militia-men (and now women) no longer have to take down "Old Betsy" from above the family hearth, and report for weekend training. Today all the weapons are provided by we tax payers, thus rendering the "dependent" clause of the Second Amendment obsolete.

Hey, don't blame me, I didn't write the Bill of Rights, but I do know how to read and I do understand the basic rules of English grammar and punctuation. So as you head out to the back yard with your hot dogs, potato salad, and pre-packaged fireworks to celebrate Independence Day, how about a shout out to the Bill of Rights. All those true American patriots in favor of standing up for our Constitution and banning those assault weapons raise your hand!